The present invention relates to a disk player, and more specifically to a disk player having a pickup guide mechanism and/or a disk loading and chucking mechanism.
One conventional optical disk player, as shown in FIG. 27, includes a pickup 102 for reading information recorded in both of the upper and lower surfaces of an optical disk 101, a pickup carrier 103 for carrying the pickup 102, and a pair of left and right guide members 107 and 108 for guiding the pickup carrier 103. Each guide member 107 or 108 includes a straight lower guide section 104 for assisting the pickup 102 to move radially along the lower surface of the disk 101, a straight upper guide section 105 for assisting the pickup 102 to move radially along the upper side of the disk 102, and a semicircular intermediate guide section 106 connecting radial outer ends of the lower and upper guide sections 104 and 105. (U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,839,881 and 4,953,154 show disk players of this type.)
In this conventional disk player, the lower and upper guides sections 104 and 105 of each guide member 107 or 108 are parallel to each other. This parallel layout is disadvantageous in the following respects.
The disk 101 placed on a turntable tends to sag at the outer periphery, and to be warped downward (about 2.degree.) by its weight. Therefore, the pickup 102 is liable to interfere with the sagging periphery of the disk 101 during movement along the arched intermediate guide sections 106 around the periphery of the disk from the lower guide sections 104 to the upper guide sections 105 or vice versa. It is possible to avoid this problem by increasing the vertical spacing between the lower and upper guide sections 104 and 105. This results in an increase in the vertical dimension of the disk player, however.
Another way for preventing interference between the pickup and the disk is to provide a tilt mechanism for tilting the guide members 107 and 108 up and down.
FIG. 28 shows a conventional drive control system 111 for such a tilt type disk player. This drive control system includes a tilt motor 112, a tilt motor driver circuit 113, a feed (or transfer) motor 114, a feed (or transfer) motor driver circuit 115, a CPU 116, a tilt up detecting switch 117, a tilt down detecting switch 118, a feed A side detecting switch 119, a feed A side innermost circumference detecting switch 120, a feed B side detecting switch 121, a feed B side innermost circumference (B side in limit) detecting switch 122, and a feed outer circumference detecting switch 123.
As illustrated in FIG. 29, after the completion of the A side play, the tilt motor 112 is operated to tilt down the pickup guide members 107 and 108.
When the tilt-down is finished, and the tilt down detecting switch 118 detects this completion of the tilt down, then the feed motor 114 operates and moves the pickup 102 from the inner circumference of the A side to the outer circumference. When the pickup 102 reaches the outermost circumferential position and this is detected by the feed outer circumference detecting switch 123, then the tilt motor 112 operates and tilts up the pickup guide members 107 and 108.
When the tilt up detecting switch 117 detects the completion of the tilt up, the feed motor 114 moves the pickup 102 from the outermost circumferential position to the B side.
When the feed B side detecting switch 121 detects the movement of the pickup 102 to the B side, the feed motor 114 causes the pickup 102 to move from the outer circumference to the inner circumference of the B side.
When the pickup 102 reaches the innermost circumferential position of the B side, and the feed B side innermost circumference detecting switch 122 detects this reaching, the pickup 102 is stopped and the pickup guide members 107 and 108 are tilted down.
Then, the B side play follows.
The conventional tilt type disk player encounters the following problems, however.
Many position detecting switches are required, such as the tilt up and tilt down detecting switches 117 and 118, the feed A side detecting switch 119, the feed A side innermost circumference detecting switch 120, the feed B side detecting switch 121, the feed B side innermost circumference detecting switch 122, and the feed outer circumference detecting switch 123. This makes the drive control system 111 complicated in construction, and increases the product cost by increasing the number of the required component parts.
It takes time to transfer from the A side play to the B side play or vice versa on account of detecting many positions by a large number of switches.
In the above-mentioned conventional disk player, moreover, there are provided, on both sides of the pickup 102, a pair of left and right pickup guide members 107 and 108, and both ends of the pickup 102 are supported by these left and right pickup guide members 107 and 108 to guide the pickup 102. Therefore, the conventional disk player further has the following problems.
The disk player having the left and right pickup guide members on both sides of the pickup is inadequate for downsizing. Furthermore, the left and right pickup guide members standing on both sides are obstructive to repairing, maintaining and checking of the pickup.
Because both ends of the pickup are supported by the left and right pickup guide members, installation and removal of the pickup to and from the pickup guide members are troublesome.
When a driving force (sliding force) is applied to the pickup, the pickup may be twisted between the left and right pickup guide members, so that the pickup cannot slide smoothly.